Instead, they ended up on eBay, at a bargain-basement price of $59.99 each. And when the modern retro computing community turned them on, what they found was something worth bringing back to life. It took a while for anyone to notice these stylish metal-and-plastic machines from 1983. First, information spread like whispers in the community of tech forums, Discord servers, and Patreon channels where retro tech collectors hid. But then, a well-known tech YouTuber, Adrian Black, did a video about them, and these eBay machines, slapped with the logo of a company called NABU, were anonymous no more. The NABU is an incredibly interesting story, but I would like to take this time to highlight Adrian Black, one of the very finest retro computing YouTubers out there. He’s incredibly knowledgeable and capable, kind, calm, and takes his time to fix and showcase the hardware he works on. He’s the Mister Rogers of retro computing, and living proof that no, not all YouTubers are flashy, algorithm-chasing airheads.
This is a wee operating system written to support the async style of programming in Rust on microcontrollers. It fits in about 2 kiB of Flash and uses about 20 bytes of RAM (before your tasks are added). In that space, you get a full async runtime with multiple tasks, support for complex concurrency via join and select, and a lot of convenient but simple APIs. I understood some of those words.
The last ReactOS release is already twp years old, and there seemingly hasn’t been any news since. Of course, the project has not stalled, and in a newsletter the project details the progress that’s been made since 2021. In the last year and during the beginning of 2023, the ReactOS developers and contributors alike are working on many parts of the project, the top focused area being the kernel. Other areas that aren’t kernel-related are the applications, specifically our Paint and Notepad programs, the Input Method Editor (IME) as well as other stuff such as the ReactOS testing infrastructure. There’s steady progress on the x86-64 port, improvements to the Security Subsystem, and more.
Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers. In an internal “state of the business” Microsoft presentation from June 2022, Microsoft discuses building on “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device.” Who wants this?
macOS is fortunate to have access to the huge arsenal of standard Unix tools. There are also a good number of macOS-specific command-line utilities that provide unique macOS functionality. There’s some real cool stuff in here.
Red Hat’s announcement last week caused quite a bit of a stir, so today, Red Hat published a blog post to defend itself. We will always send our code upstream and abide by the open source licenses our products use, which includes the GPL. When I say we abide by the various open source licenses that apply to our code, I mean it. I was shocked and disappointed about how many people got so much wrong about open source software and the GPL in particular —especially, industry watchers and even veterans who I think should know better. The details — including open source licenses and rights — matter, and these are things Red Hat has helped to not only form but also preserve and evolve. I feel that much of the anger from our recent decision around the downstream sources comes from either those who do not want to pay for the time, effort and resources going into RHEL or those who want to repackage it for their own profit. This demand for RHEL code is disingenuous. In the strictest sense, Red Hat has a point in that as long as the company abides by the various licenses covering the code they use, alter, and redistribute, there’s really nothing anyone else can really demand from them. Abiding by the licensing terms of open source code is the bedrock and foundation upon which the entire open source ecosystem is built, and suddenly demanding people do more is actually not fair – if you want to demand more from the downstream users of your code than, for instance, the GPL demands, then you should choose a different, stricter license. That being said, the open source community is also, as the term implies, a community, and taking something you have been providing for decades away from a community merely for financial gain – which is ultimately what their reasoning comes down to – is never going to go down well. And since you’re building upon and are part of that same community, you’re biting the very hand that feeds you. I understand Red Hat’s position, and as long as they abide by the licensing terms in question, I’m not going to be mad about it. However, it’s still shitty, and it still negatively affects a ton of people.
I recently discovered a secret browser located inside the “Manage my account” popup that Android has in various apps (quite important apps, such as Settings, and all Google suite apps). The browser even bypasses parental control! A secret browser that is entirely different from whatever browsers you have installed on your Android device? I’m sure that won’t present any problems whatsoever. Then you have two methods which I don’t know what they do, but they sound scary. As this is a secret-browser of the ‘on-device encryption’ feature, I can guess, they are both used to set your local encryption keys. So it looks like a malicious website can put their keys there, and try to make you pay for them! I think this is the time to tell you that I already reported this to Google, and they say this is not a security vulnerability (probably because this secret browser is not very popular), and that the parental control bypass is the “Intended Behavior”. Oh. Good.
Do you use Windows 3.1? Do your friends send you jokes and haikus written by ChatGPT, and make you feel left out? Do you wish you had the sum of all human knowledge at your fingertips? Or wish you had your very own AI chatbot on your trusty 386? Wish no more! Introducing WinGPT, an AI Assistant for Windows 3.1. Absolutely bonkers.
As expected Linux 6.4 is out today as stable as an on-time release following a relatively quiet cycle the past two months. While the RC period of Linux 6.4 was relatively quiet and uneventful, that’s not to say there isn’t anything good with Linux 6.4… But in fact there’s a lot from beginning to upstream various Apple M2 support code in different drivers, AMD Guided Autonomous Mode added to their P-State driver, and a lot of other new hardware work. It’ll find its way to your distribution, or you can install or compile it yourself.
I recently started a Pixelfed account dedicated to all the various pieces of (mobile) hardware I own. It’s still quite new, but the intention is to post photos of my Palm/PocketPC/etc. device collection a few times a week, with a short info blurb. The account will post no other content, so you won’t see photos of my food, sunsets, beaches, or other irrelevant nonsense. In case you aren’t aware – Pixelfed is the Fediverse equivalent of Instagram, in the same way Mastodon is the Fediverse equivalent of Twitter. You can follow my Pixelfed account either through Pixelfed itself, through Mastodon, or through many other Fediverse-capable applications and services. Of course, you can also just bookmark it.
Kicking off a busy day of product announcements and updates for AMD’s data center business group, this morning AMD is finally announcing their long-awaited high density “Bergamo” server CPUs. Based on AMD’s density-optimized Zen 4c architecture, the new EPYC 97×4 chips offer up to 128 CPU cores, 32 more cores than AMD’s current-generation flagship EPYC 9004 “Genoa” chips. According to AMD, the new EPYC processors are shipping now, though we’re still awaiting further details about practical availability. There is so much competition in the processor space at the moment – it’s just great. Few of us will ever get to use or even see these processors, but eventually, technologies developed for the very high end of the today will make their way down to the attainable end of tomorrow.
In this blog we’ll look at what it takes to construct an in-memory loader for Mach-O bundles within MacOS Ventura without using dyld. We’ll walk through the lower-level details of what makes up a Mach-O file, how dyld processes load commands to map areas into memory, and how we can emulate this to avoid writing payloads to disk. I also recommend reading this post alongside the code published here to fully understand the individual areas called out. In keeping with Apple’s migration to ARM architecture, this post will focus on the AARCH64 version of MacOS Ventura and XCode targeting macOS 12.0 and higher. With that said, let’s dig in. This is well beyond my pay grade, but I’m sure some of the more advanced macOS nerds among you will love this.
Yes, I’m a little late, but here we go: The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 3.18! This new release includes several new applications such as Hex – a scriptable file/RAM/disk hex editor, ArchiveIt – a ZIP archiver/unarchiver application and Thermals – an app displaying thermal and fan information and graphs. In addition, MorphOS 3.18 supports Samba 2 and 3 network share browsing and mounting in the Ambient desktop. Radeon drivers have been updated to better support dual monitors, more graphics card models and 3D, including updated TinyGL library and drivers. We have also improved Realtek 8168 ethernet drivers with support for more card variants and enhanced networking stability on PCI express systems like PowerMac G5 11,2. USB input device connectivity issues on supported CyrusPlus 5040 systems have been corrected. This looks like a great release, but with the supply of PowerPC Macs, especially capable ones, dwindling, one has to wonder just how long they can keep this going. There have been rumbles here and there these past ten years of a port to x86, but I have no idea where those efforts stand.
More than two years ago, Red Hat introduced CentOS Stream as the focal point for collaboration around Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). CentOS Stream shortens the feedback window between Red Hat engineers and partners, customers, and communities while at the same time providing even greater visibility into the next innovations in RHEL. We’ve seen great success in the Special Interest Group (SIG) community to help integrate and bring new technologies together faster than ever. The Automotive SIG is an excellent example of this. Hardware partners have also ramped up to use CentOS Stream for more rapid support of new hardware technologies. Because of CentOS Stream, Red Hat Enterprise Linux development is more transparent and open than ever before. As the CentOS Stream community grows and the enterprise software world tackles new dynamics, we want to sharpen our focus on CentOS Stream as the backbone of enterprise Linux innovation. We are continuing our investment in and increasing our commitment to CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases. For Red Hat customers and partners, source code will remain available via the Red Hat Customer Portal. This is peculiar, but not entirely unexpected. This change is going to have some serious effects for third party RHEL-compatible Linux distributions, such as Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, and so on. Alma Linux published a blog post about what this means for the future of the project, and the gist seems to be “we don’t really know yet”.
Apple today announced the availability of new software tools and technologies that enable developers to create groundbreaking app experiences for Apple Vision Pro — Apple’s first spatial computer. Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro lets users interact with digital content in their physical space using the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — their eyes, hands, and voice. Starting today, Apple’s global community of developers will be able to create an entirely new class of spatial computing apps that take full advantage of the infinite canvas in Vision Pro and seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world to enable extraordinary new experiences. With the visionOS SDK, developers can utilize the powerful and unique capabilities of Vision Pro and visionOS to design brand-new app experiences across a variety of categories including productivity, design, gaming, and more. I’m genuinely interested to see if third party developers can come up with better use cases for Apple’s VR headset than Apple itself did.
The confusion over Microsoft’s plans to retire the current Mail and Calendar apps for Windows with the new Outlook for Windows app continues. Last week, Microsoft sent a message to Microsoft 365 admins stating the Mail and Calendar apps would be replaced by the new Outlook starting in September 2024. However, an apparent backlash against that timeframe caused Microsoft to send out a follow-up message stating it was now “reevaluating the timeline”. Now, a new post on the Microsoft 365 message center, as shown by Windows enthusiast Tero Alhonen on Twitter, states that Microsoft won’t replace the apps with Outlook until sometime “by the end of next year.” This newly vague timeline shows Microsoft still doesn’t have a firm date yet, and may not have one for some time. So Microsoft is – confusion aside – going to replace the native Windows e-mail and calendar applications with a website. Not even Microsoft wants to write native Windows Applications. Makes you wonder just how much life Windows has left.
Linux on the PS3 has a pretty interesting history. If you’re familiar with the History of the PS3 you probably know that when it was first released in 2006 Sony shipped it with support to run other operating systems through a feature called OtherOS. OtherOS allowed people to install operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD on a second partition on the PS3 hard drive. In 2010 Sony removed OtherOS support in firmware 3.21 because of “security concerns” AKA some people were starting to use it to look a bit too close into the PS3 internals and figure out how to pirate games. With custom firmware it’s possible to use OtherOS on modern firmwares so that’s what we’ll be doing here. This is the continuation of part 1 about the Xbox 360.
The European Union (EU) is set to usher in a new era of smartphones with batteries that consumers can easily replace themselves. Earlier this week, the European Parliament approved new rules covering the design, production, and recycling of all rechargeable batteries sold within the EU. For “portable batteries” used in devices such as smartphones, tablets, and cameras, consumers must be able to “easily remove and replace them.” This will require a drastic design rethink by manufacturers, as most phone and tablet makers currently seal the battery away and require specialist tools and knowledge to access and replace them safely. This should’ve been mandated more than a decade ago, but better late than never. Faulty batteries is one of the primary reasons people eventually upgrade, even when their device is otherwise still perfectly functional. Device owners should be able to easily open their device and replace the battery, and of course, said batteries should not be hindered by patents, trademarks, or any other artificial monopolies – anybody should be able to produce them. The battery in my 2018 Dell XPS 13 9370 bulged a few years ago, but since the laptop is easily opened, it took me about 5 minutes to replace the faulty battery with a brand new one, and it only cost me about €100 – on a laptop that originally cost about €2200, I think that’s an amazing deal to keep the machine going. It’s otherwise in tip-top shape, and its 8th Gen i7, 16GB of RAM and 4K display can easily last me another ten years, especially since, as a Linux user, I won’t have to worry about my operating system killing off support. Smartphones should be the same.
The European Commission has made a formal antitrust complaint against Google and its ad business. In a preliminary opinion, the regulator says Google has abused its dominant position in the digital advertising market. It says that forcing Google to sell off parts of its business may be the only remedy, if the company is found guilty of the charges. This would be a significant move targeting the main source of the search giant’s revenue, and a rare example of the EU recommending divestiture at this stage in an investigation. The Commission has already fined Google over three prior antitrust cases, but has only previously imposed “behavioral” remedies — changes to its business practices. Music to my ears. Companies exist to serve society, and if they no longer serve society by becoming too large, too powerful, and too wealthy, thereby massively restricting competition, they must be chopped up into smaller parts to create breathing room in the market. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft – and that’s just the tech sector – all need to be broken up to allow newcomers to fairly compete. The US has taken similar actions with railroads, oil, airplanes, and telecommunications, and the technology market should be no different.
Eight years after Google Domains launched, and a little more than a year after it graduated out of beta, Google is “winding down following a transition period,” as part of “efforts to sharpen our focus.” That’s corporate-ese for “We need to keep cost-cutting, so we’re selling this business we just finished shaping up to Squarespace.” I have two domains over at Google Domains. I doubt Squarespace’s UI is going to be as nice and easy to understand as Google’s is.
